


one step at a time

by Gee_Writes



Series: The science of healing [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Gen, Hospitals, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Medicine, Minor Character Death, Paralysis, Prosthesis, hospital au, kinda like canon, no alchemy but lots of medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-22 23:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gee_Writes/pseuds/Gee_Writes
Summary: The crash happens on a stormy night, as most of the worst ones do. Rain buckets down outside and the roads are muddy and hard to navigate. It’s a dismally normal occurrence, and when the survivors—the two young boys, brothers—are brought to his hospital, broken and bleeding out, Roy can’t help but pity them.





	one step at a time

The crash happens on a stormy night, as most of the worst ones do. Rain buckets down outside and the roads are muddy and hard to navigate. It’s a dismally normal occurrence, and when the survivors—the two young boys, brothers—are brought to his hospital, broken and bleeding out, Roy can’t help but pity them. Only parent dead from the crash, their own lives changed tragically and traumatically in a single instant. The team does the best they can, and it’s hours upon hours of operating time to stitch the oldest back together as much as possible. Roy hadn’t been in charge of the younger one, but he hadn’t been in much better shape, and he can see the wan look on Hawkeye’s face when she leaves the theatre—her hard, self-assured persona crumpling in the face of their sheer inability to save these boys from anything more than the immediate danger of death. The hardships of the future yet to be seen. They may be surgeons, they may have stopped the two children from joining their mother, but Roy doesn’t particularly feel like he’s saved anyone tonight.

 _Elric_ the patient file says.

Roy adds it to the pile.

 

*

 

Three days after waking up, Edward Elric lives in a hazy existence of morphine and the sickening realisation that his leg is gone. It feels like a tremendous effort to move his head to look at his hospital roommate, his younger brother Alphonse, but he does it anyway to reassure himself that the younger boy is still there.

At twelve years old, Ed’s whole life has changed. Left leg missing from the knee down, right arm reattached at the shoulder, sure to heal into a thick scar. He still can’t feel his fingers on that hand, but he’s not sure if that’s because of the pain killing drugs he’s being dosed on, or if that’s just going to be his new normal from now on.

Al hasn’t awoken yet; doesn’t know that Mom is gone for good, and doesn’t know that they’ve been stuck in a hospital for a week since. The doctor—Hughes—had said his little brother was being kept asleep to help his body heal some more first, but from what Ed can tell, there are no missing bits to Al’s body like his. He’s glad in that regard; happy that he had been able to shield his brother from the worst of the impact, even if it had left him without a leg, and with an unsure arm reattached.

A kind social worker comes to talk to him about the crash and his family. Her name is Gracia and she smells of apples and honey and baking. She’s trying to find a new place for them to stay for when they leave the hospital, she tells him, but Ed’s beginning to doubt that there will ever be an end to their imprisonment within the white, sterile walls of the hospital. The acrid smell of disinfectant ever-present, and the worried flustering of the nurses as they work endless shifts. Ed’s sick of being woken up every handful of hours by nurses checking, draining, rebandaging his stump. Hates how it never gets truly dark in the building at night. Hates how he keeps getting questioned about his absent father he doesn’t want to see. He nods dazedly whenever he feels prompted to, but keeps his gaze trained on Alphonse. His brother’s heart meter is steady and strong, and it lulls Edward back to sleep.

 

*

 

Alphonse Elric awakens right as expected, easing him out of the drug-induced coma a fortnight after the accident. The doctors sit and explain as much as they can to the eleven-year-old, but Ed is the one who shares most of the hard news. He cries at the news about his mother and cries harder at the news about his brother. His own injuries just another injustice in a long list of unfair circumstances. Edward looks like he’s going to be sick as he explains it all, and Al can see the guilt painting his brother’s face, even though there’s nothing for him to feel guilty about. It’s only after the tears are all gone, dried, that Al runs a hand across his own leg, knowing he won’t be able to feel it. It feels odd, not being able to sense his lower half anymore, despite seeing with his eyes that his legs, hips, feet, are still attached. He feels ripped in half in a different way to his brother, but no amount of reattachment surgery or prosthetics will be able to fix it. Memories of running through the fields of Risembool now nothing more than that.

He hadn’t been aware that those moments were things he had taken for granted.

 

*

 

Rockbell Prosthetics is considered some of the best quality in the country, and Roy is surprised to find the matriarch and legendary engineer, Pinako Rockbell, sitting beside his youngest patient as she talks through plans for replacing his leg. There’s a young girl, a similar age to Edward himself, at her side, wordlessly listening to the explanation and nodding along. When an in-depth explanation of weight balance and stump swelling starts, Roy can’t help but be impressed at how easily the preteen absorbs the information, not asking once for the older woman to clarify or simplify something. He had heard that the two boys’ father had been some sort of organic chemistry researcher and professor with one of the large universities in Central Amestris before disappearing, but he had apparently left a substantial fortune behind for his children in the event of an emergency. It seems that same fortune was what was paying Roy’s fees, and funding whatever state-of-the-art design the Rockbells provided. Golden hair and golden eyes look worn and weak under the fluorescent bulbs of the hospital room, but there’s a fire burning deep within that strikes Roy sharply. The young boy is nothing but skin and bones and missing parts where he sits in his bed, but the surgeon can already see how willing he is to fight against fate.

And it’s surprising to finally feel the relief that those 27 hours in surgery hadn’t been for nothing; hadn’t been a twisted curse of a miracle.

Edward Elric is a survivor.

 

*

 

According to the social worker Miss Gracia, the Curtis family will be fostering them both as soon as Ed’s fit with his new leg. The couple has no children of their own and a popular store in their hometown, with enough room to welcome Ed and Al into their home. The two of them aren’t exactly the easiest to house and look after anymore, especially together, but Edward had insisted they not be separated. It may have been selfish, but he thinks he deserves a little selfishness after everything. When he had first met their prospective foster parents, the to-the-point manner of which Mrs Curtis had told them the plans had Ed’s heart burning—grateful as to how easy she made it sound. How quickly she had accepted the broken pieces of the Elric brothers.

She’s the total opposite personality of what their mother had been, but it’s comfort all the same.

But before that, Edward’s getting a new leg. They’re expecting at least a three-month adjustment period at the Rockbell farm and medical practice to check and change and rework the limb before he can properly start physical therapy, and then another eighteen months after that of steadily retraining his body to his new replacement. Both he and Al will stay with Granny Pinako and her granddaughter Winry at the clinic for the first year. Although it’ll be another hospital bed, in reality, Ed’s looking forward to seeing the rolling country hills from his window rather than the grim parking lot of Central hospital. And once he’s back on his feet, as it were, he’s going to start studying on ways to help Alphonse regain his legs too—he’d made the decision to dedicate his studies to spinal injuries as soon as he’d learned about the truth of his brother’s injury. With the types of medical advances going on all the time, he’s sure to find _something_. He hates hospitals—despises their smell and look and atmosphere; the suffering and sickness neverending. He hates them, but, Ed’s also willing to spend the rest of his life in them if it can help his brother.

They’re wheeled out together, as the nurses wish them luck on their future recovery. Al thanks them both wholeheartedly; rolling his eyes when Ed only lilts a smart-alec-y “we’ll see you all soon, anyway. You won’t be getting rid of us that easily.”

Breaching the hospital entrance in their twin wheelchairs, Edward feels the sunshine on his face for the first time in weeks. It feels so nice to escape the stagnant air of their room, and anticipation thrums in the older brother’s nerves. Excited, he turns to Al, grinning wide as the younger boy does the same.

They’re finally taking the next step forward, together.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how or why this AU idea was so adamant to be written, but here it is. I honestly can't promise frequent updates, but I do have a lot of ideas, so here's hoping for more in this series.
> 
> This is also my first fic for a series i have adored since my early weeb days (the 2003 anime was the third anime I ever watched, a decade ago), so I hope I can do it justice by even a fraction of what it deserves.
> 
> If you enjoyed, please leave a kudos or a comment!


End file.
